Radioactivity in the Fernald Neighborhood

The Department of Energy's Feed Materials Production Center (also called the Fernald plant), located near Fernald, Ohio, produced uranium metal mainly for use in plutonium production at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and at Hanford in Washington state. The plant was operated by National Lead of Ohio (NLO) from 1951 through 1985. In 1986 it was taken over by Westinghouse. NLO had a number of subcontractors, (the Alba Craft plant in Oxford, Ohio, for example), who performed a variety of tasks such as machining of uranium metal. The Fernald plant closed in 1989, and the site now has a new name: the Fernald Environmental Restoration Management Corporation (FERMCO). It is currently being remediated by the DOE contractor, Fluor Daniel.

The Fernald plant consisted of 10 production operations (called "plants") as well as other support buildings. In these facilities, uranium in various forms, including ore concentrates, scrap, and recycled material containing uranium were processed to produce uranium metal. The six waste pits at the site contain both radioactive and non-radioactive chemicals, including uranium isotopes, thorium-230 (a waste material from the uranium production process), thorium-232, and barium salts. In addition, the K-65 silos located on the site contain radium-226, a decay product of uranium which emits radon (see centerfold). Figure 1 shows a schematic diagram of uranium processing operations at Fernald.

Source: Voilleque et al., Fernald Dosimetry Reconstruction Project, Tasks 2 and 3: Radionuclide Source Terms and Uncertainties (Neeses, SC: Radiological Assessments Corporation, 1995), p. B-2.

Throughout the history of the plant's operation the DOE and its contractors consistently asserted that the offsite residents were not harmed by its operation and that exposures were within allowable limits. These assertions were challenged in a 1985 class-action lawsuit brought against NLO by neighbors of the plant. In that year, Lisa Crawford, the lead plaintiff, had discovered that the well that she and her family had been using for drinking water was contaminated with uranium. She also found out that the DOE and NLO had discovered the contamination four years earlier but had not informed her. Ms. Crawford realized her well was contaminated after she requested monitoring data in the aftermath of a highly publicized accidental uranium release from the plant in late 1984.

The Fernald plant had, in fact, released a number of radioactive and non-radioactive pollutants to the air and water, but DOE had very partial data for some of these materials, and none at all for many others. Among the pollutants were: uranium, thorium, radon gas, radium, technetium-99, ammonia, hydrofluoric acid, fluorine, nitric acid, kerosene, chromium, and lead. The most important radioactive pollution consisted of releases of uranium and radon gas to the air. Detailed evaluations of non-radioactive pollutant releases have not yet been done and few data exist on which such evaluations can be based.

Uranium releases

Internal evaluations of the plant's operations were initiated in 1985 and they continued until the plant was shut down in 1989. In early 1985, NLO estimated that the releases of uranium over the 34-year period from 1951, when parts of the plant were started up, to 1984 were about 200,000 pounds. The NLO estimate was increased to 300,000 pounds by 1987 after inclusion of estimates of some of the most serious emissions during the 1950s. There were a number of evident deficiencies in these official estimates. Among the more egregious errors were:¹

• An assumption that releases were zero when there were no data.
• An assumption that scrubbers designed to remove uranium from highly acidic exhaust always operated within manufacturer specified efficiency, despite internal plant data to the contrary.
• The use of an incorrect formula to calculate scrubber releases under conditions of variable efficiency.
• Inclusion of fabricated data that showed that releases were zero at locations and times when no measurements were being made.
• A failure to account for poor dust collector efficiency and frequent problems with dust collector equipment.
• Poor industrial hygiene practices, such as leaving radioactive materials to dry in trays in doorways, and operating equipment that was in poor condition.

IEER was retained in 1987 by the law firm of Waite, Schneider, Bayless, and Chesley to do some of the expert studies for the class action lawsuit. IEER's review of the historical documents showed that plant officials were aware of many of these deficiencies. For instance, the use of the incorrect formula for scrubber releases was pointed out in a 1971 memo by a plant engineer, who called it "inherently deceptive" because it resulted in release estimates that grew smaller as the scrubber efficiency deteriorated -- the opposite of the truth. Figure 2 shows the actual releases of uranium compared to the NLO estimates for an example in which uranium in the air going into the scrubber was 100 kilograms.

FIGURE 2: Variation of Efficiency of Airborne Uranium Releases from FMPC Scrubbers for an Assumed Inlet Uranium Loading of 100 Kg*

Source: Makhijani and Franke, 1989 * This is the amount of uranium in the gas going into the scrubber.

A 1955 document pointed to early problems with uranium release estimates: "We realize in most instances that these estimates [for stack losses from plants 4 and 7] are far below your true stack losses."² Plant 7 was shut down in 1956 due to operational problems. Plant 4 continued to operate until Fernald shut down, and the problem of corrosion of dust collector equipment by acidic exhaust continued for decades.

The following example also illustrates the poor industrial hygiene practices at the plant:

Probably the worst housekeeping problem in the facility is the Ball Mill. The equipment leaks excessively at practically every joint. All horizontal surfaces have a thick covering of dust....Since the ventilation is inadequate and these is no proper enclosure, a bucket was placed under the largest leak to help contain the spilled dust.³

Such discharges of radioactive materials were not measured and were disregarded in the official release estimates and public reassurances.

Under the glare of public scrutiny and the class-action lawsuit, Westinghouse, the new contractor (and not named as a defendant), revised the official figures for the 1951-1985 period again and stated that the releases were in the range of 395,000 to 552,000 pounds. While these estimates were higher, they still disregarded many known facts. For instance, unmeasured losses over the plant's entire 37-year history were estimated at about 700 pounds, while an internal plant document stated that unmeasured losses were more than that in a single month.

During work on the lawsuit in 1988 and 1989, IEER focused its work on estimating uranium losses, since that was the main material processed and data on other materials released to the air were scarce or non-existent. We re-estimated losses from several important sources, notably scrubbers in the scrap recovery plant (Plant 8). We also made an estimate of uranium releases based on measurements of uranium in the soil around the plant. Our work was admittedly very preliminary, mainly since IEER was unable to obtain most of the crucial documents regarding plant operation and pollution control equipment efficiencies. Moreover, the quality of the data that we had was poor and some of it was internally inconsistent.

Still, we concluded that the official estimates were almost certainly wrong, that the releases were higher than the upper end of the official estimate of 552,000 pounds, and that uranium air concentration standards had been violated on at least some occasions. IEER estimated that uranium releases were in the range of 600,000 to 3 million pounds, with a middle estimate of 900,000 pounds. IEER also recommended further detailed work, since these estimates were of a very preliminary nature.

The DOE, which defended the lawsuit on behalf of the contractor, NLO, settled the suit for $78 million in mid-1989, but admitted no wrong-doing, or even any technical problems in its own or its contractors' work. (Under the terms of its contract with the government, NLO was immune from all liability, including that arising from negligence or violations of regulations.)

Doses due to uranium exposure by inhalation were the next most important factor, with other radioactive materials and pathways being judged relatively low. The table, "Comparison of Cumulative Effective Dose Contributions from Uranium Exposure Mode and Radon Decay Products" in the centerfold shows the exposures for various scenarios as calculated by RAC. The increased risk of cancer ( especially lung cancer ( are substantial in all cases. In many cases, they are comparable to the risks from smoking.

Concluding observations

The history of studies of exposure to Fernald's neighbors show that the reassurances of the DOE and its contractors -- that the nuclear weapons plants were operated safely and in compliance with applicable health and safety laws and regulations -- should not be taken at face value. The work of IEER, RAC, and others at other nuclear weapons plants indicates that DOE and contractor estimates of releases of radioactive materials are generally underestimates, and are riddled with faulty data, poor science, and calculational mistakes and inaccuracies.

Despite the settling of the lawsuit against the contractor of Fernald for $78 million of taxpayer money, concerns remain. Many studies have repudiated DOE and contractor work, showing elementary scientific flaws in it, but neither the DOE nor any of its contractors have discussed what went wrong, much less how the recurrence of scientifically dubious and misleading studies might be prevented. Many issues, such as the exposure of residents to non-radioactive pollutants and non-compliance of the plant with environmental regulations, remain unaddressed.

The DOE needs to put its own work and that of its contractors in the perspective of the findings of the independent Fernald studies. That should be the first in a series of steps that it must take to create a system that would do environmental science with at least the same vigor that DOE and its contractors addressed bomb-making.